This invention relates to a clipboard capable of holding accessories. More particularly, it relates to a clipboard with hook and loop tape, especially intended for holding accessories such as tape recorders and calculators.
The user of a conventional clipboard must often simultaneously use an accessory too, such as a tape recorder or calculator. With the advent of miniaturized electronic tape recorders, calculators, and other accessories, these items have become easily portable, and their use with a clipboard and writing pad is naturally complementary. However, the user of a clipboard and an accessory often has difficulty in handling both items simultaneously. Frequently, such a user will have limited space in which to work, for example, when he is seated in an aircraft, train, automobile, or especially in a classroom or meeting room environment. Under these circumstances, the accessory most often is held in the user's hand due to lack of workspace. This denies the user the freedom of using both hands. Besides forcing the user into an awkward working posture, hand-held use of an accessory tends to induce fatigue and arm and hand weariness. In addition, if the accessory is a tape recorder, hand-held use generally causes banging and scratching noises on the sound recording, due to the movement of the tape recorder. Further, use of an accessory in a limited space, whether the accessory is in the user's hand, on his lap, or on a cramped working surface, involves a significant risk of damage to the accessory due to bumping or dropping.
In the past, clipboards with attachments have been proposed (U.S. Pat. No. 3,309,514), and the use of hook and loop tape as a means for holding is well known (U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,387,341; 3,128,514; 3,476,304; and 4,391,457). However, so far as is known, no presently available clipboard has been able to have accessories securely yet removably mounted thereon in a facile and simple manner as herein proposed.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide a clipboard wherein accessories may easily and removably be secured to the clipboard, allowing both the clipboard and the accessories to be readily available to the user.
It is a further object of the invention to provide such a novel clipboard which is of relatively simple construction, inexpensive to manufacture and easy to use.
It is a more particular object of this invention to provide such a novel clipboard wherein the accessories and the clipboard may be handled and carried as a single compact unit with both the accessories and the clipboard writing surface available for immediate use.